Sherlock's Birthday, or, How Not to Celebrate One
by felinefemme
Summary: All John Watson wanted to do was buy his semi-reclusive flatmate a cake after work, wish him well, and be done with it. Nice and simple.
1. Surprise visitors

All John Watson wanted to do was buy his semi-reclusive flatmate a cake after work, wish him well, and be done with it. Nice and simple.

Of course, since this concerns Sherlock Holmes, nothing is simple or all that nice. It seemed that way when he left the flat this morning, a regular boring, grey London morning, drained of all color now that Sherlock's wrapped up his latest case and passed out somewhere in the vicinity of his bedroom. John didn't much care, as long as his flatmate was unconscious and out of trouble.

Clad in his usual black jacket, off-white jumper, blue buttoned-up shirt, and black trousers, he seemed to pass invisibly through the hospital doors and past the waiting patients in the lobby, nobody really bothering with the sandy-haired man and his unprepossessing nature. John signed in, and as per the season, saw a small herd, that is, a small family of sniffles and gave them all the same treatment, he just had to remember to put different names on the notes for the different family members. "Ah," he sighed, thankful it was another boring day at the office.

Then D.I. Lestrade and Sergeant Sally Donovan crashed in, looking for all the world like they wound up on the wrong side of a mugger this morning. "What happened?" John asked, partly for formalities' sake, since he wasn't into the deduction game like Sherlock, especially this early and on only one cup of tea.

The gray-haired man glared dully at him, trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes from a forehead wound bleeding profusely, although it was actually just a tiny cut. "Wrong side of a mugger," Lestrade grumbled as he pulled off his jacket, to reveal an uglier gash on his right arm.

Donovan winced and did the same, although on her skinnier frame, it looked worse. "Too bad the freak wasn't there, he could've gotten these instead of us," she muttered, her mouth pursed at her ruined business jacket.

John sighed, feeling he should save his eye-rolling for something more worthwhile. For what, exactly, he wasn't sure, but he was sure something was bound to turn up. "I'm just wondering why you're here instead of at a regular ER, is all," he murmured as he applied ointment and bandages to Donovan's skinny arm.

"Oh, just wanted to wish Sherlock a happy birthday," Lestrade grunted. He didn't wince like Donovan did when John applied the ointment, but his lips flattened as the bandages were wound tight. "So, yeah, happy birthday and all that."

"You could just text him," John said mildly as he attended to Lestrade's head wound. "I'm sure he'd appreciate it."

The grey-haired man gave him a look at the word "appreciate" and John made a face in return. "Yeah, well, he never answers unless it's something to do with a crime, and only a mind-boggler at that," the D.I. said, then hopped off the table.

As John nodded at that sentiment, the thin black woman rolled up her jacket efficiently, ready to go. "I'm surprised he even has a birthday, I thought he escaped full-grown from a madhouse or a lab experiment."

It's too bad I already bandaged her, John thought regretfully, I could've really pulled the bandages tight right then, and I probably shouldn't punch a copper, much less a woman. He shook his head instead and said aloud, "Right, well, I'll pass on the greetings," he said, not really meaning it.

The D.I. gave him a half-grin, as if he expected as much. "You do that," Lestrade nodded, "be seeing you."

"Yeah," the doctor gave a half-hearted wave as the two walking out of his office, as abruptly as they came in.


	2. Good golly, Miss Molly

"Oh, hello!" a familiar, abrupt female voice said from just outside the doorway. "Goodbye!"

John blinked, then walked to the door, wondering why Molly Hooper's staying in the hallway. "Yes?" he said to the young lady with the nervous tics and longish hair pulled to the side, waving to the police clearing out, but only Lestrade raises his hand in a casual goodbye.

"What? Oh!" she spun around, like she didn't expect him to be there. Somehow, John isn't surprised by that, and smothers a smirk. She smiled nervously, and held up a small freezer container. "This is for Sherlock. I left him a message on your blog, but I'm not sure he'll read it…" her voice trailed off uncertainly.

The doctor sighed and walked over, taking the container from her. "I'm guessing this is a birthday gift." He started walking down the hallway towards the kitchen, figuring to put it next to his lunch in the break room.

She nodded eagerly as she walked with him. "Yes, but don't open it. It'll combust when exposed to oxygen," she explained hurriedly, putting her hand over his when it appeared he would do so.

"What?" John nearly dropped the container. "You're seriously going to give something explosive to Sherlock?" Maybe she's regained some sanity and dropped her crush in favor of a more healthy hate. That seemed to be most people's reaction to Sherlock: love him or hate him, there really was no in-between. So what did that say about him? And then he promptly quashed that thought as the girl, no, awkward young lady answered his question.

"Oh, it's not explosive, not entirely," Molly said earnestly, her mouth quirking up a little. "It's a home-made Hand of Glory, left hand of a criminal, on ice, but I added a few chemicals to make the fingertips ignite when exposed to the air. Simple, isn't it?"

John nodded slowly, thinking that out of all the birthday gifts Sherlock was likely to appreciate, this would be it. And of course, it would come from the one person he'd least appreciate it from. "Thank you, Molly," John said, heartfelt, as he put it next to his lunch, while making sure there was enough room away from everyone else's meals. "Come on, I'll see you out." He started to put a hand out, feeling he should have some kind of manners for someone who actually put in an effort to make Sherlock a gift, albeit a gruesome one, at that.

"Oh, no problem, I thought he'd like it," she smiled, backing away – and nearly knocked over a weight scale as she did so. "Oh, I'm so sorry!"

"Careful on your way out," John said belatedly, holding back a sigh. She waved like a schoolgirl, then walked out facing front, and managed not to walk into anything else. Thank God for small mercies, he thought, heading back to his office.


	3. An uncomfortable surprise

Before he could get there, Sarah met him and raised her eyebrows meaningfully. "John," she said in a tone that was half-warning, half-questioning.

Well, that certainly got him curious. "Yes?" he raised his own considerable eyebrows back.

"There's a woman here to see you," she said. "And I don't think she's here for a check-up."

He frowned slightly. He hadn't been on any dates since, well, the Jeannette disaster, so he had no idea who this woman was. "Right, I'll see her," he said briskly.

"Right," Sarah nodded, but there was something suspiciously like a blush on her pale cheeks, but John didn't think too much of it. "I'll send her in."

"Thanks, Sarah," he smiled, and headed to his office.

And got another surprise for the day. "Hello, John," a sultry voice said as he opened the door.

"What – oh my God!" John gasped, clutching at his chest, feeling his eyes would pop out of their sockets. "But, but you're –" he staggered, and was thankful that his back hit the wall instead of the floor.

"Supposed to be dead. Again. I know," Irene Adler sighed, looking as dramatically female as she always did, her lips a rich red, her eyes outlined and mascara'd to within an inch of their lives, her long hair in its usual uptwist-type fashion, her dress long and fitted, in an elegant, '50s sort of way, like she was a proper businesswoman. Right. "Proper". Hah. And now, in his office, she was looking very alive, very hale, and very predatory, which seemed to be her usual expression. If he were another man, say, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson probably wouldn't have minded, but as John, he minded quite a bit, especially since she told him he was gay, and he really didn't appreciate that. "So, mind passing on a little greeting to the birthday boy?"

He gave her a what-the-hell look. "You're not going to text him?" Honestly, out of all the people Sherlock would actually read a text from, it would be this woman.

"No," she smiled, but looked down as she did so. "I'm fairly sure it would kill me."

"Says the dead woman perched on my examining table," John noted drily. Then he added in a long-suffering tone, "Why don't you visit that idiot instead of me?" Because goodness knows the world needs more beautiful little sociopaths, he thought mutinously.

She smiled, as if she could read his thoughts. Dammit. "Because it's fun," she said simply, then hopped off the table. Irene barely cleared his forehead with heels on, but she still managed to look intimidating and too sensual for his comfort as she walked over to get in his face. Then she leaned over and whispered in his ear, "And if you're man enough, you can pass this on to him," and pulled down his shirt collar. Before he could twist out of her grasp, she didn't just kiss his neck, she gave him a bloomin' hickey. When she pulled back to study her effect, she smirked at his stoic face and posture and waved as she walked out.

It was only when the office door closed that John Watson allowed himself to stagger and look as befuddled and embarrassed as he felt. He pulled at his collar, as if it would burn, and hoped it would be the last of the strange visitations. He gave a quick look in the mirror, and the damage was as bad as he thought. Self-conscious, he pulled up his shirt collars in a bad imitation of his flatmate. Nope, still bad, he thought, but at least no one has to see that damn hickey. Well, that should be it for ghastly visitations, he mused, and honestly, it should be Sherlock getting haunted, not me, it's HIS bloody birthday!


	4. An unpleasant surprise

Alas and alack, as he recalled some old book he'd read somewhere saying, it was not to be. Half an hour later, a little boy with a black mop of curly hair and large, watery blue eyes walked in, sniffling. John had his hopes up that it was another case of the cold, but no, it was not to be. The dark-haired boy, who was dressed in an old-fashioned long robe, with a knotted scarf similar to Sherlock's, wiped at his nose and read off a pager, "Three words. Twenty-one letters. You have three guesses in one minute. Go."

When the boy opened his robes to reveal a semtex-laden vest, along with a dancing little red dot on his chest, John's stomach fell to his feet. Crap. The good doctor looked the boy in the eyes, and said as calmly as he could, "You all right? Need some water?"

The boy shook his head, then hiccupped with fear as he read, "Two guesses wasted. Hurry up, doctor."

I hate you so much, Moriarty, John fumed inwardly, and I hate Sherlock almost as much. Aloud, he said in a flat voice, "Happy birthday, Sherlock."

"Oh, I was hoping you'd stutter," the boy read. "Fine, the boy's yours." Then the boy started to cry in earnest, and John only felt relieved when the red dot disappeared. It wasn't long before he hauled off the explosive vest, not bothering to explain as he ran out the doors with that in one hand and calling the police with the other. Once he dumped the damn thing in the dumpster, he ran back in to his office.

He found the boy, still in shock, standing in his casual clothes, but with tears and snot running down his face. "It's all right now," John said, grabbing tissues to wipe the boy's down. "What's your name, and where are your parents?"

It took a while to get things settled with the boy, who had been lured out by the promise of a new video game, and his parents came soon enough, followed by a grim Lestrade and a small brigade of New Scotland's finest. "I know it's about Sherlock, but this is ridiculous," the D.I. muttered as the family was led out of the surgery.

"Too right," John said under his breath. Really, what kind of person gets this kind of over-the-top violent greeting, aside from his flatmate? The only thing he could think of was perhaps a world-famous celebrity, or an international politician, but Sherlock was neither. Well, he'd joked about getting a knighthood before, and his brother's in the government, and he was getting more notice with the internet, but aside from that, that was… nothing? Ugh, just thinking about what his flatmate did to him, much less to everyone else he encountered, was enough to bring on a migraine. "I've had enough of this," he muttered, "if people are going to do this to me, then I'm bloody well going home!" Yes, he actually shouted that last bit, which only raised Lestrade's eyebrows a bit, but it was completely understandable. Goodness knows how often Sherlock had driven the D.I. up the wall without even being there. He refused Lestrade's offer of a ride home, figuring he should probably get some walking in there, because he might kill his flatmate if he came home too early.


	5. The drive home

It was only half a day, which meant Sherlock had, indirectly, caused him to miss hours at work. Again. Dammit. At least he was done with the day, and with no small measure of relief, he signed out and headed out the door, tossing off the white lab coat and shrugging into his black jacket, with Molly's gift in hand. And then he came face to face with the woman whose name may or may not be Anthea, and he groaned. "Oh, come ON!" he said, seeing a familiar black limousine pull up.

While Irene Adler was put together in a classic way, 'Anthea' was quite modern in dress, bearing, and accessory. "Well, hello to you, too," the beautiful brunette said, her eyes not leaving her blackberry. Then again, Irene seemed rather attached to her camera phone, in spite of handing it over to Sherlock. Hm.

John squinted at the device in her hands. "What on earth do you keep typing on that thing, anyways?" he asked, not really thinking she'd answer.

"Gay porn about you and your friend," she said, not changing her bored expression or incessant typing, "it passes the time away."

He sputtered, but stepped into the black limo nonetheless. "Hello, Mycroft," John sighed, making a face.

The man in the dapper business suit and umbrella in hand made a similar face, although it was twenty shades more snobby. "Really, do you have to carry that around?" Mycroft asked.

"Why am I here?" John asked in a long-suffering voice, putting the container of a dead man's hand between himself and the strange woman.

"We're taking you home," Mycroft said, as if it were obvious.

Yes, obviously. John's dark eyes searched the ceiling. "Thank you," he said flatly, minutely thankful it wasn't another abandoned warehouse. That would just be topping on the cake, so to speak.

"Yes, well, I was hoping you'd pass along my greetings to my younger brother on the day of his birth," the older gentleman said primly, his lips pursed just so.

"And you can't tell him yourself because…?" John paused.

Mycroft huffed. "I would, except that Mummy has expressly forbidden me from upsetting him 'today of all days', to quote her," he said. "And we all know my presence would do just that. So."

"So," John echoed, then nodded to the implied command. "Fine. I'll do it."

"Thank you," the shadowy arm of the government nodded, and sat back in his seat. "Here we are."

"Have a good day," 'Anthea' said absently, her eyes and fingers still busy texting.


	6. Stupid, stupid flatmate

The good doctor was, at this point, in no mood to celebrate anything or anyone, much less his stupid, intractable, impossible flatmate whom everyone was insistent on feting in their most disreputable way. "I hate you so much," John muttered as he walked upstairs and into the flat proper, barely registering the colorful streamers someone like Mrs. Hudson had thoughtfully tacked up along the wall.

"Is that any way to greet the man whose birthday it is today?" Sherlock sniffed, from somewhere out of sight. "You should be in a better mood, even if my brother _did_ give you a ride home."

The sandy-haired man made a face, which he was sure Sherlock could sense, but didn't much care. Tired and weary, he felt the need for a cup of tea rather than hand over his flatmate's gift from Molly, so that's what he did first. He felt himself relax as the kettle whistled, and he poured the hot water into the teapot. He could hear Sherlock moving restlessly about the flat, but he didn't care, he was having tea first. After about a minute, he poured himself a cup of tea, and closed his eyes, as if wishing the day's odd events would wash away with the scent of brewed caffeine. Nope, not working. Oh well, he thought, sipping his tea, and counting down when Sherlock would give in and storm into the kitchen in bedrobe and slippers. Three, two, -

"Right, fine," Sherlock was practically in his face, his light blue eyes staring sharply at him, inspecting him under a curly mop of dark hair. "Well, you've had a busy day at the surgery, short as it was."

"Quite right," John said mildly, not bothering to elaborate.

Sherlock's eyes narrowed under his light brown eyebrows, and John could almost swear he saw sparks flying off his friend's dark curly hair. Almost, not quite. One of these days, however, Sherlock might work himself into a tear and pace around enough to get static electricity, but until that time, poetic license must be made. "Mm, Lestrade, Donovan, pity Anderson wasn't there, too," the taller man murmured.

John nodded. "Go on." He took another good swallow of tea as deductions from observations leapt to his flatmate's mind, transferring it to his face and his movement.

"A bunch of snifflers – you have washed your hands properly, correct?" Sherlock added, stepping back, and John rolled his eyes. "Right. Wait. What?"

He leaned close to John, then sniffed. "The woman? She was there and not here?" he stared hard, then yanked down the collar.

John felt himself blushing, even though he knows he shouldn't. Fidgeting, he handed over the mobile. "She really should have saved me the trouble and come here instead," he said.

"Fine," Sherlock repeated, not really paying attention now that his focus was on the sweat on his flatmate's collar. "Moriarty, too? And repeating his little bomb vest thing, how boring."

The doctor nodded. "Honestly, they should just stick to leaving messages on our blogs."

"Well, they did that, too," Sherlock sniffed. "Happy birthday," he pitched his voice higher, "love, Molly. Oh, it's your birthday, then? Happy bday from Harry." His voice went a little deeper but younger and geekier, "Happy bday from your biggest fan Jacob Sowersby. No, I'm his biggest fan. Happy birthday, Sherlock Holmes. theimprobableone. Biggest birthday wishes, C Melas." He lowered his voice, but not by much for the next few, "Happy birthday, Sherlock! Mike Stamford. Happy birthday, mate! Bill Murray. I'm sure you and John enjoyed my gift, anonymous." He shot a look at John, who shrugged. "That last was probably Moriarty."

"Probably?" John raised his eyebrows.

"Most likely," Sherlock glowered.

"Yoo-hoo, happy birthday, Sherlock!" Mrs. Hudson called up from the stairs. John turned to see their landlady, done up like she's out for a date in a festive blue dress, quickly ran to help her with the cake, which was lit up with a single candle. "Oh, do cheer up, Sherlock, it's your birthday," she clucked.

"I can't help that," he said, but dutifully pasted on a smile and blew out the candle. "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson."

The elderly lady beamed. "Oh, it's not a problem," she said, "I saw John come in looking so tired, I knew he'd forgotten to bring up the cake." While she sent a wink towards John when Sherlock's back was turned, nobody doubted that Sherlock knew and smirked at them anyways. "By the way, what's that?" she pointed at the container by John's feet.

"Oh, this? It's from Molly," John said lightly, and handed it over to Sherlock.

The tall man raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. "Something organic," he murmured, "and yet not." When he opened it, there was a slight "whoosh" and Sherlock's eyebrows nearly came off with the blue flames that erupted from within. "Hang on – _Molly_ gave this?" he asked.

Now John's cheered up, and his grin is from ear to ear. "Yep," he said, folding his arms as he watched the frozen fingertips blaze merrily from the mini-icebox, just as promised. "Hand of Glory, just for you. Happy birthday, Sherlock."

His flatmate seemed to be re-evaluating his estimation of the awkward mortician. "Well," he said at last, "she does have some brains under all that hair."

The doctor rolled his eyes, while their landlady clucked again and wondered aloud, "What are young ladies up to these days?"

Then Sherlock smiled at him. "Would you like a picture of this for your blog?"

"Of course," John grinned, and Sherlock worked to arrange the hand so it looked like it was his coming out of the robe's sleeve. "Say cheese."

"Bratwurst," Sherlock deadpanned, and as Mrs. Hudson snorted, John got in a couple of shots on his mobile phone. "Actually, why don't we just send this to Molly?"

"Oh?" John raised his eyebrows, but smiled a little. Yeah, once in a while, Sherlock could be human. "All right."

Then Sherlock looked musingly at the hand, whose glowing fingertips were fading to a dull waxy finish. "And send a copy to me, too. I think it should be my personal wallpaper."

Of course. Why share it with the world when you can keep it to yourself? John doesn't say this out loud, but he knows Sherlock knows he's thinking it. His tongue sticks out a bit as he sends copies over to Molly and Sherlock, not realizing he's doing so. And yeah, he's keeping this. It looks too funny, like his flatmate's some kind of mad magician. He doesn't realize there's a smile on his face as he scolds, "I hope you put an end to this nonsense, because this is _not_ happening next year. Got that?"

"Nonsense? You mean people giving you extra attention, all because of little old me?" Sherlock batted his eyes, and John made a face. "Come on, it was fun, wasn't it? Or would you rather be chasing clues left and right for a birthday gift at the end?" he says with a devilish grin.

"Neither," John said with a straight face, "in fact, all I want is a nice quiet celebration, a bit of tea, some cake, just like this. And to see your hair actually on fire. That's all."

Now Sherlock's eyebrows go up, and before long, they're both cracking up, with Mrs. Hudson shaking her head, but giggling also.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, SHERLOCK!


End file.
